From the Senior Pastor – The Intercom, June 2020

The longing we feel to be together is strong these days. Not a week passes without someone asking us, “When is the church going to reopen?” How we answer that question is a matter of how we define the word “church.”

It is true that we have limited the hours the building is unlocked during this time when we have been encouraged to remain physically separated or “socially distanced.” In this sense, I suppose it is technically accurate to say the church is closed more than it is open.

But if we remember that the church is not so much a building as it is the people whom God has called into mission for the sake of the world, then it is also accurate to say that, even during a pandemic, the church has never “closed.” The ministry to which we are called as God’s people has never ceased. It has merely adapted to the times in which we are living.

Maybe the most obvious example of this adaptation is the way we are gathering for worship these days. Rather than getting up, putting on our Sunday best, and making our way to 909 West 33rd Street for worship and fellowship with hundreds of other OSL members and friends, we’ve been gathering in our homes around screens of all sizes to worship at a distance so that we don’t put ourselves or our fellow worshipers at risk of becoming infected with COVID-19.

Those of us who have been in the building on a Sunday morning have become accustomed to empty, quiet spaces that are normally teeming with activity and alive with the savory smell of bacon. Pastors lead worship and preach to a mostly empty room. Musicians play and sing without immediate feedback from the assembly, and the TV ministry team struggles week after week to capture the action of worship without drawing too much attention to the vacancy of the room.